Shenzhen’s take on La Tomatina dubbed ‘wasteful’

Every May Day holiday, hundreds of visitors gather at Shenzhen’s Window of the World park to pelt the ever-loving crap out of each other with tomatoes in a knockoff of the La Tomatina tradition in Valencia, Spain. Recently, however, the custom has drawn flack for being extremely wasteful.ECNS reports:

The activity was designed to let visitors experience foreign culture and help modern people release stress, organizers said.The wholesale price of tomatoes at a local market is about 4.2 yuan ($1.67) per kilogram, which means the food fight cost 3,150 yuan ($503.2) per day.The majority of netizens who commented said it was a wasteful activity. One said that “it is not easy for farmers to harvest food, and in China there are still many who save money by eating vegetables.”Other netizens said the event was just a copy of a foreign festival, with no root in Chinese culture and tradition.

We do sympathize somewhat with the participants, however. This ripoff tomato fight is a lot more entertaining than the Chinese tomato tradition of racing tomato-laden motorbikes to see who can go slowest.We just hope this tradition doesn’t carry over to the durian harvest season.